by KaLyn Cooper
Glancing at the caller ID, ice cold fear shot through her veins.
“Hello.” She braced for the worst.
“Good morning, is this Teagan Williams?” The efficient female voice asked.
“Yes.” Teagan’s throat grew tight. Her mother hadn’t been well since she’d been transported from the DC facility to the new one in North Carolina. She, and the new nurses, had feared that she had caught a virus somewhere along the way.
“This is Anna Fritz. I’m the nurse today for your mother’s unit. She woke up very agitated this morning and has been calling for you. Is there any way you can come in and see her today? Otherwise, we’re going to have to sedate her.”
“She’s calling for me?” Her mother’s periods of lucidity had become nearly nonexistent in the past year. Most of the time she didn’t even know who Teagan was.
“Yes, ma’am. She’s been calling for her daughter. Actually, screaming. She wants to see you,” the nurse explained.
Teagan looked at her watch. It was only eleven thirty. She had so many things yet to do that day, but if her mother needed her, she would go. If she didn’t have the children with her, she could move twice as fast. “Let me call my babysitter and I’ll call you right back.”
“Thank you. Can we tell your mother you’re on the way?” The nurse suggested.
“Yes. If I can’t get a sitter, then I’ll bring the children with me.”
“Our guests love children, so they’re always welcome. We’ll see you soon.”
Teagan quickly called Erin who was at her door within a minute. “Hi, Ms. Williams. I’m glad you called. I’ve missed these two.” She scooted into the house and made a beeline for the children sitting at the breakfast counter, hugging them both as they squealed with joy.
“Erin, you’re back,” Brann said with a huge smile on his face. He shot his arm out, nearly punching her in the face. “See what I got? It’s not a watch. It’s a phone.” His little eyebrows pinched together. “But it does have the time, so I guess it is a watch too.”
She held her watch to show him. “Mine just tells the time. Yours is really cool.”
“Erin, can we have a tea party?” Anora begged.
“Give me one minute to talk to your aunt and I’ll be right back. You guys finish your lunch so we can play.” Erin trotted back to Teagan as she collected her purse and keys. “I see they had their lunch. Is it okay if we just play in the sand? I’ll keep them far away from the water.” Her eyes lit up. “Did you hear? We’re going to have a spring tide this evening that’s going to be really high. My dad said they are predicting it might be one of the highest in twenty years, not counting title surges because of hurricanes.”
“What time is high tide?” Teagan put her hand on the doorknob.
“It should reach its peak around six o’clock,” Erin announced.
“Oh. No problem. I should be back home before then.” Teagan started to step through the door then turned back to Erin. “We have friends coming in tonight, but they may show up early. If they do, have them call me. The kids will be fine with their aunt and uncle. I’ll pay you, when I get home.”
Erin giggled. “It’s okay. I know where you live. If they show up, I’ll stop by tomorrow.”
“That would be wonderful.” One less thing for Teagan to worry about that day. Elizabeth had mentioned when they talked yesterday that Matthew was going to try to get off work early to avoid the DC traffic. Mentally she added another pack of chicken to her grocery list in case they made it there before supper.
Four hours later, Teagan was emotionally exhausted as she pulled into the large parking lot of the chain grocery store. When she’d arrived at the memory care facility, she could hear her mother screaming from the foyer.
As she approached the nurses’ station, a tall woman with dark curly hair slid around the corner.
“Are you Ms. Williams?”
Teagan hadn’t been there enough times to memorize the names of all the nurses and aides. “I am.”
“Thank God you’re here. We were just about to sedate her.” They walked side-by-side towards her mother’s room. “Thanks for coming so quickly. By the way, I’m Anna.”
“Mom, I’m here,” Teagan called out as she stepped into the room. She was shocked to see that her mother had been restrained with padded leather cuffs.
“We were afraid she was going to hurt herself, or someone else.” Anna slid her a glance. “She took a swing at the nursing assistants who were trying to help her.”
“Who are you?” Her mother yelled. “I told them I wanted my daughter. Where’s my little girl? I want my baby.”
Teagan approached the bed and placed her hand on her mother’s forearm. “Mom, I’m here. It’s me, Teagan. I grew up.” It was all she could think to say if her mother was picturing her as a child. She continued to try for over an hour to calm her mother down.
They were finally able to convince her to take a pill, which she promptly threw up. It took another two hours for them to get ahold of the doctor to prescribe an injection. She agreed with the nurses to speak to the doctor early next week to include in her standing orders that if the situation repeated, they could give her another injection. Another nurse suggested that this may have been caused by the medication they were giving her. Teagan would have to talk to the doctor about that as well.
As she walked toward the store, tears flooded her eyes with the realization that her mother was truly gone. That woman back at the long-term care facility was no longer the wonderful, caring mother who had raised her. The physical shell of that woman may not be with her long. She’d done the best she could for her mother ever since she’d been diagnosed with rapidly progressing Alzheimer’s.
Now, Teagan had to be a good mother to Brann and Anora, trying her very best to replace Marsha, who she seemed to miss more that day than she had in the past two months.
Her mother, the children, week-long visitors, and her relationship with Logan, weighed heavily on her thoughts and heart.
Somehow, she managed to complete her grocery shopping, filling every square inch of her cart. When she saw the total, she almost had a heart attack. She’d never bought that much in her life. Thankfully, she and Logan had agreed that the house account would pay for everything for their friends’ visit because it had been encouraged by the children’s psychologist.
As she pushed the overburdened cart toward her car and popped the trunk, she hadn’t been aware of the two men approaching her until they were blocking her between her car and the van next to it.
“Are you Teagan Williams?” The taller man closest to her trunk asked.
Sizing him up quickly, she could easily see that he was military. That was nothing new. There were at least fifty thousand Marines stationed at Camp Lejeune and New River Air Station, plus at least that many retirees. Although he wore civilian clothes, jeans and a tightfitting, drab-green T-shirt, he looked like any other Marine on a Friday afternoon.
“I am,” she tentatively answered and started loading her SUV with groceries. “How do you know my name?” She had been to the office at MCAS New River where she would begin work in four weeks testing the Marine Corps’ new CH-53 King Stallion helicopters. She’d met so many men that day, there was no way she could remember all their names.
The men moved in closer. She was still able to put the bags into her car, but they were just a little too close for comfort. Her fight or flight instinct was kicking hard at her manners which demanded she be polite.
Covertly, she scanned the parking lot. She could push the cart into one man and swing a bag filled with canned goods at the other then sprint toward the store, screaming and yelling.
“You have something our boss wants,” claimed the man on her left.
“And we have something you want.” The man on her right shoved his cell phone in front of her face. A selfie of Brann and Anora filled the screen…with Ashley Helms sitting between them, smiling like a Cheshire cat.
Teagan’s
knees almost gave out.
She couldn’t breathe.
The bag of cans dropped into the back of her car with a thunk.
“What did you do with Erin?” Teagan hated that her voice shook.
“That pretty little thing?” The man with his cell phone smiled making chills run down Teagan’s spine. “As soon as Ashley showed up and introduced herself as the children’s aunt, she smiled as though she was expected and left.”
Teagan was relieved that Erin wasn’t going to get sucked into the situation. At least she was safe. She didn’t think that Ashley would hurt Brann and Anora, but the involvement of these two men added a whole new dimension. They could hurt anyone of them, or all of them, and probably would.
They hadn’t disguised themselves. She knew exactly what they looked like and could easily identify them again. They were probably going to kill her. Before they did, though, she had to be sure Brann and Anora were safe.
“What makes your boss think I have something he wants?” Re-fortifying her nerves, she continued to unload the cart. Plan A was still the possibility. As soon as she was safe she could call Logan and he would find the children…or die trying.
The man with the cell phone punched a few buttons then thrusted it back in her face. “You’re live with the kids. Say hello.”
“Say hi to Aunt Teagan,” Ashley said with a big smile, practically spitting out the word aunt. “We all know she’s not your real aunt. I am,” she sneered.
Teagan couldn’t keep her eyes off the two little faces she’d come to love. They look scared.
“Are you coming home soon, Aunt Teagan?” Brann asked hopefully.
“I’ll get there just as soon as I can.” She hoped she could keep that promise. “You are such a brave little boy, Brann. You take care of your little sister. Will you do that for me?” He had no idea she meant for him to care for his sister…forever. Teagan was pretty sure this was the last time she’d ever see them.
Brann nodded and reached across Ashley to hold his sister’s hand.
The man turned the phone toward himself. “Ten minutes. You know what to do.”
“Of course, I know what I’m suppo—” He cut Ashley off by hanging up and stuffed the phone back into his pocket.
Brann and Anora scared, in the clutches of Ashley, was not the last picture of them she wanted to hold in her memory, but their looks of desperation helped transform her fear into anger. She had to figure out a way out of this. She learned in SERE school—Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape, one of the many adjunct classes taught during flight training—when captured, make them see you as a human.
“Help me out here, men. Who’s your boss? Maybe then I can figure out what I have that he may want.” Her immediate thought went to her testing of the CH–53 King Stallion. She’d been on that project since leaving the Navy. Could these men be spies? Does some other country want to know the specs on the helicopter? It didn’t make sense.
“You don’t need to know his name,” the taller man said gruffly. “We know what you have and you’re going to give it to us.” He picked up the last several bags and tossed them into the back of the SUV. “Get in and drive.” He grabbed her by the bicep and jerked her toward the driver’s door.
By the time she slid behind the wheel, the other man was in the passenger seat, a gun in his lap, pointed at her.
Yes. They would definitely kill her, she could see it in his eyes.
She turned the key and started the vehicle. “Where am I supposed to go?”
“Where do you think, bitch? To wherever you hid Gabriel Davis’s computer and the backup copies.” The man’s smile was anything but comforting. “We thought that Marine officer next-door had them. He doesn’t have shit.”
“But he does get to fuck you.” His hand touched her bare knee and started creeping up her thigh under her sundress. She’d started wearing them since moving to North Carolina because they were so comfortable and easy to slip on and off. She now wished she’d worn slacks, but in the coastal heat, they were just too hot.
She smacked his hand away. “Don’t touch me,” she growled.
“Oh, you’re a feisty one.” His smile broadened. “So, you like it rough.”
Oh, shit. Did they intend to rape her before they kill her?
Concentrate! You need a plan. At the moment you are holding all the cards.
She shifted the car into reverse. “Everything you want is at my house.”
His cell phone seemed to appear out of nowhere. “She says they’re at her house.”
“We already search there,” claimed the voice on the other end.
“I know. I was there searching, too. Maybe you missed it,” the man in the shotgun seat accused.
Okay. So, they had searched her house, probably while all four of them were out to supper. That would have been three days ago. They could’ve searched Logan’s house at any time since he’s gone to work all day. Her traveling companion’s lewd suggestion indicated they had been watching the house for at least the last two weeks. She wasn’t sure how those deductions helped her formulate a plan, but at least they had her concentrating on something other than the gun pointed at her.
She was heading home. At least that would put her closer to Brann and Anora.
If they had searched her side of the duplex while they were out to supper, then that explained why they couldn’t find the laptop. Brann would’ve had it in the car. Inwardly she laughed at them. The backups were still in the loft, mixed in with several flash, SD, and even a few micro SD, drives in a plastic box labeled NEW. During the move, her box labeled FULL had been broken so she’d combined the two. She knew which ones they were looking for, but they certainly couldn’t tell the difference. Talk about hiding in plain sight.
As for the computer, she wasn’t sure where it was at the moment, remembering Brann’s complaint just before she left the house. She was glad these thugs hadn’t found it, though.
As she thought more about it, she remembered taking the children out to pick up supper last night. Pretending to adjust the rearview mirror, she checked the back seat, mentally shaking her head when she realized what they wanted was less than three feet away. There was no way in hell she was going to tell her abductors. Nor would she give them the backup drives.
She’d figure out another way. She had to.
As soon as she had put the car in park, she flew out the door and up the steps. “Brann. Anora.” She called their names in desperation. The video had shown them sitting on the couch.
They were gone. She could feel the emptiness of the house.
As her kidnappers followed her in, yelling at her, she turned to them and punched her fists to her hips. “Where the hell are my kids?”
“They’re safe, with their aunt.” The man raised the gun to her chest. “Get the computer and the backups. Now.” He ordered.
“I want to talk to the children before I get it for you.” She was going to hold her ground. “I want to know they’re safe.” And alive.
The same man as before punched at his phone before he said, “want to talk to kids.” He held it out to her.
She sighed and held back the tears as she forced a smile. “I’m home, now. Hopefully your Aunt Ashley will bring you home soon.” She could tell by the background that they were about two blocks down the beach at their favorite ice cream shop. She swallowed hard. As the man grabbed for the phone, she called out, “I love you, both.”
The second man stepped into her personal space. “You’ve seen the brats. Where the fuck is the computer and drives?”
She decided to go with the truth. “They’re in the loft.” She turned and headed up the steps to the second floor. Without looking back she climbed the spiral staircase.
It was a tight fit with the three of them, especially given the size of the men, in the small space with the slanted ceilings. She grabbed a plastic box and stirred the drives with the tip of her finger. She extracted a microSD drive, one that she knew was empty.
“Here.” She handed the closest man the tiny chip.
Movement in her peripheral vision caught attention. Since they lived almost at the end of the road, people didn’t often drive down their way. She instantly recognized the black SUV. Logan was almost home.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Thanks for letting me tap into your vacation with Elizabeth and Matthew.” Micah stared out the side window at the beach, smiling. “I really needed a break.”
“No problem. The more the merrier.” Logan knew what his good friend hadn’t said was that he needed to reconnect with people who understood the life of an active duty special operator. Their whole field had changed in the past five years and neither he nor Micah believed it was for the better. Thankfully, General Lyon, commanding officer of USSOCOM, didn’t either.
As Logan approached his home, he once again felt the excitement of seeing his family. He loved coming home to Teagan, Brann, and Anora. They were his. He was going to have to figure out a way to spend more alone time with Teagan. What they had started two weeks ago had become torturous to continue. He wanted to make slow love to her, showing her physically exactly how much she meant to him. Emotionally, he would be there for her, too.
She’d finally gotten an appointment with one of the top surgeons at Duke University. Logan hadn’t been happy that it wouldn’t be for another five weeks. They were still discussing options as to whether to take the children or see if they could find someone to babysit overnight. Erin was wonderful for a few hours at a time, but she was only sixteen.
“This is such a great place that you have here,” Micah noted.
Logan’s gaze swept over the duplex. Movement in Teagan’s loft caught his attention. There seemed to be a lot of people up there. He wondered if Matthew had been able to get off early. Perhaps their friends were already there, and she was showing them around. When the bodies moved, the hair on the back of his neck stood straight up. There were two men in the loft with Teagan.
Micah instantly read his body language and looked to the loft. “I don’t like the way this feels.”